Soldier On
by trufflemores
Summary: 5.17. After being tortured by Chase, Oliver needs more help than he's willing to admit. That's what family is for.


When the mayor's door opens, shuts, and locks, Oliver is so numb he doesn't move.

He keeps his back to the intruder, aching for sleep or death or some finite space between, hands on his lap, meditatively still.

"Forgive me," Quentin introduces, setting a glass of water on his desk. "I can't drink to your good health."

"It's fine, Quentin." Oliver doesn't turn around, gaze fixed on the window. Rain drizzles down steadily, obscuring the city beyond. "How are you?"

Quentin huffs dismissively, sitting in the chair across from him. "Oliver, there was a time when you were going to be my son-in-law," he says bluntly. "I know we've had a lot of history since then, but you're still the closest thing I have to one."

"I'm not your son." Oliver says it quietly, but sternly, like snuffing out a candle between his thumb and forefinger.

Quentin sighs, ice clinking as he drinks from his own glass. "No, I know," he says, setting it down. "You're Robert Queen's son."

"I don't need to be reminded."

"I think you do."

Oliver swivels slowly in his chair, looking at Quentin. His eyes burn. He is fairly sure he wouldn't recognize his own face in a mirror. "Why?"

"Because you're convinced your birth certificate says _May 9, 2007_."

Oliver's jaw stiffens. "Might as well," he says without heat.

Quentin pushes the glass closer to him. "Twenty-one-years-old." Shaking his head, he repeats, "You were twenty-one-years-old when that damn boat went down."

Oliver ignores the glass. "Your point?"

Quentin meets his gaze, unblinking. "Robert Queen's son," he says, "survived five years in hell, came home, and still tried to put the city right."

"He failed," Oliver says quietly.

"Plenty of times," Quentin agrees. "So have I."

"You've been through a crucible," Oliver reminds, looking at his hands. He doesn't like to talk about Laurel, or Sara; both are too far away. "There's no protocol."

"There's no protocol for what you went through, either." Quentin pushes the glass forward and Oliver takes it to humor him, but he doesn't drink. He isn't thirsty; he hasn't been since he got back. Water turns his stomach. "No one, not even God, could have endured what you did and come out unscarred."

"I know." Oliver forces down a sip before folding his hands on the desk to hide their tremble. "But I'm not God, Quentin. Oliver Queen died on that yacht. Robert's son _died_ ten years ago." Leveling a flat look at him, he finishes firmly, "I'm not the man you think I am. I didn't survive. I broke. I _changed_. I became someone else. _Something_ else."

Quentin doesn't blink. "And what is that, exactly?"

Oliver's chest hurts. He has to look away. "A monster."

"A monster," Quentin echoes. "Is that what he told you?"

Oliver's jaw hardens. "He didn't need to."

"Just had to beat it out of you first, didn't he?"

Oliver slashes a hand across the desk; both glasses shatter on the floor. "Chase didn't force me into anything," he snaps. " _I became a monster_. I snapped people's necks and tortured them because _I wanted to_."

"How many of those people tried to hurt you first? Hurt your family, your friends, people you cared about?"

"There is _no excuse_ for—"

"No. Damn right there isn't. But those people weren't innocent, and you weren't exactly in an authoritative position, making decisions all on your lonesome. No," he says softly, leaning forward a little, conspiratorial, "you were forced, and then you were conditioned, and now you're convinced that all that trauma somehow made twenty-one-years of personhood disappear. And yet you've spent the past five years fighting for that humanity."

"I'm a serial killer."

Quentin doesn't say anything for a long moment. Oliver swivels his chair, putting his back to him. His hands shake so hard he knows he couldn't hide them in front of Quentin.

"I used to live in a black-and-white world," Quentin begins, tone seated before a crackling fire. "That's what we cops call ourselves: 'black-and-whites.' Justice on one side, injustice on the other, and nothing in between. Then the Peter Declan case happened."

"He was framed for his wife's murder," Oliver supplements quietly. His stomach hurts. He wants Quentin to leave, but he can't bring himself to say the words. "Jason Brodeur ordered the hit."

"Laurel," Quentin pauses to cough, actively-in-pain, "she, she listened to you, when you were The Hood, because she knew that something wasn't right. She had an intuition for these kinds of things. A real cop's daughter."

Oliver doesn't turn, granting Quentin the privacy to cry in peace. "Justice was Declan lying down with a needle in his arm and never getting up again. That didn't happen. Know why?"

Oliver keeps his mouth shut. Quentin plunges on, undeterred. "A man in a green hood decided _justice_ was an innocent man walking free. I happen to agree with that. I still, at times, disagree with his methods." Oliver doesn't smile, but something in his chest loosens at the reminder of old-times. "Can't help it, I've been on one side of the law for too long. But I know why he does it now."

"Why does he do it?"

"Because he believes in a world with fewer tragedies," Quentin finishes simply.

Oliver doesn't respond; thunder fills the interluding silence. Aching to be out on the streets, he wants to bask in the rain, but his body doesn't move. He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve anything given to him after May 9, 2007. Swallowing, he says, "I'm still a mass murderer."

"Yeah. You are. And by conventional law, I should have you locked up for life."

"I've earned death row."

Quentin sighs, standing and walking around the desk. Oliver tenses but doesn't move when he places a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it. "We don't operate under conventional law," he says. "What you've done – the atrocities you've committed – won't go away. Neither will your guilt. But unless you acknowledge it, the pain will fester, Oliver, until it infects every corner of your soul."

"It already has," Oliver replies, husked out.

"No." Quentin shakes his head. "It hasn't. Because if it had, you would've killed Chase. If it had, you never would have brought Diggle or Felicity, or _me_ into the mix. A true monster doesn't care for anyone. I've met few people who care as much as you do."

Oliver's throat feels tight. Speech escapes him.

"You care about your family and friends and your city. You care about being the Green Arrow." Oliver keeps his gaze on the world beyond the glass, resisting tears. "You want to be the person your family and friends would be proud of."

"I skinned a man alive," he says. Quentin's flinch is tiny but not imperceptible. "I didn't have to," he continues, numb. "He gave up what I needed pretty quickly, but I … I did it anyway. I did it because I wanted _practice_." Shaking hard, he hunches over his own stomach, nausea and terror warring for dominance. Nausea wins out; yanking the trash bin out from underneath the desk, he dry-heaves into it.

"All right, it's all right," Quentin says, patting his back.

Oliver hasn't eaten anything since Chase released him, and he regrets it, but not half as much as he regrets the burning guilt in his stomach.

"All right," Quentin repeats. Oliver sits up slowly, still shaking. "Come on. Come on, Oliver," he says, pulling Oliver to his feet. He goes, unresisting, even though it hurts. Everything hurts; the soles of his feet, the arc of his wrists, the catastrophic burn sweeping the canvas of his skin. His lungs hurt, his stomach hurts, his eyes hurt. He wants to sleep it all off, but sleep won't come, either; even his dreams hurt. Quentin says, "Come with me."

Oliver goes, putting on a mayoral indifference to his own emotions as he straightens his jacket. Quentin leads the way, unlocking the door for him. The hall is full of staffers, but the walls of his office are thick; people turn, but no one stares. "Mayor Queen," they greet in passing. He dips his head in salutary nods, silently refusing the offers to engage or shake hands, moving on. Quentin gets him to the elevator and down to the main level without drawing any undue attention. A perfectly pressed suit is an effective wall of armor against inquisitive eyes.

In the rain, Mayor Queen and Deputy Mayor Lance walk. If Mayor Queen limps, even observant bystanders would be hard-pressed to see it. The black car pulled up to the curb purrs invitingly, engine still running. Queen grimaces but does not fight the hand on his back, urging him towards the backseat. Lance opens the door and Queen slides in next to bodyguard John Diggle. The door shuts, and Lance climbs into the front passenger's seat beside former Chief of Staff Thea Queen, who pulls away from the curb as soon as Lance is seated.

Oliver slips out of his own head for a while, _descending under a canopy of forest green. He thunders across the terrain, trusting his feet where he cannot trust his eyes. His own breathing is the loudest sound for two miles; the shore is a distant thing, leaves hissing subsonically underfoot. His lungs ache, but he doesn't slow down, doesn't dare. Something is coming after him, and it doesn't matter if it's Edward Fyer's men or Konstantin Kovar's. He has to keep running. If he stops, he will die._

 _Акула, которая не плавает - тонет._

 _The shark that does not swim – drowns_.

He comes to seated on a hospital bed in a grey, sterile room. _A.R.G.U.S_. Tensing, he starts to stand, but John places a hand on his shoulder, keeping him down. "Easy," he advises. "It's okay." Someone took his jacket and tie off for him, but they left the pressed white shirt on. Lyla stands nearby, frowning.

"John," she begins, but he shakes his head. The admonition is clear: _later_.

"Let's get you settled, okay?" he tells Oliver, tugging on his shirt.

Oliver obediently unbuttons it, closing his eyes as he slides it off his torso. There was a time when he would have fought tooth-and-nail to avoid revealing the extent of the scars. Now they feel like brands; he can't bring himself to hide them.

Meeting Lyla's unflinching stare, he waits for her judgment. She doesn't pass it, turning instead to greet a woman he doesn't recognize, introducing, "This is Dr. Aidan C. She's one of our best."

Aidan steps forward and holds out a hand to shake. Oliver clasps his fingers around it and says nothing, letting go. He wants to hide, but he knows he can't. "None of this is on the record," Lyla assures.

Oliver dips his head in an acknowledging nod. John's hand is back on his shoulder. Oliver reaches up and squeezes it slightly, quietly seeking his strength.

 _When he was nineteen, he spent a night in jail, a friendly purple memory of joking with Tommy and laughing raucously, drunk and summer-brave, untouchable. Charges were dropped the next morning and consequences forgotten by the next shot of tequila._

 _Three years later, jail is a very different experience._

 _When he's twenty-two, jail is an arctic blue cage carved a claustrophobic three feet deep, situated somewhere in the middle of Purgatory. It's eighteen square feet, lined with rusty, stripped soil. It's two broken fingers, middle-and-ring, right hand, throbbing noisily, a shout of_ I didn't do anything! _still burning in his lungs._

He's barely awake, but he resists the quiet impulse of a sedative, watching someone bandage right hand. Round-and-around the roll of gauze goes, mesmerizing him. Reality shoulders its way in, drawing shallow breaths from him. He's ten years younger, his throbbing fingers a reality, the earthen cage a visceral taste in his mouth, gley and unforgettable. He tries to sit up and stops halfway, arrested by the pain in his shoulder, in the burns branded there, and _how could it all have been a dream?_

 _There's something he told Laurel, something important, something cold._

 _You might think it would be impossible to crave cold when your hands are numb and your breath seemed to bleed in your chest, trapped in a hypothermic cycle, but he wants something cold. He wants_ something _, and his stomach is empty, and the cold is all he could taste, and then it hits him: he wants to eat ice cream again, something cold and sweet and untraceable to the island, a better cold, a kinder cold, a cold to erase the pain of his curled toes and shivering chest._

 _He wants to eat ice cream with her again. In his dreams he sees it, sunshine pouring golden across a small table between them, smiles and warmth juxtaposed with the bright silver spoon in his mouth, vanilla, blueberry, peach, every flavor he could conceive. He dreams about it until it almost tastes real, and then he opens his eyes_ —

And sees grey-blue walls.

Like the cold castaway that abandoned his precious hiding nook under an overturned tree, he shivers. There's something heavy in his system, and _it brings back the steaming cold, too, the white memory of heavy days and sleepless nights. The weight sits on his tongue, the remembered sourness of edible plants and the bitterness of poisonous ones. His stomach hurts chronically, but he can't change it, fueling the machine with calories that cost. Often he wishes they would kill him, but they don't, and he develops tolerances that turn even bitter almost sweet_.

Warmth blankets his shoulders, and the shivering intensifies before subsiding, pain and shame jockeying for prominence. He tangles a hand in the blanket and holds it to his chin, breathing slowly in-and-out, aching for the perfect solitude that haunted him too often on Lian Yu, and then he closes his eyes—

 _And slips under again, diving beneath waves of turquoise-blue that grade into obsidian. He kicks hard and swims as fast as he can even though his lungs strain for reprieve, aware that people die in cold waters far warmer than these. He has no choice; he has to swim, or he will drown._

 _He never even sees the shark coming._

Thea says, "Ollie," and he flinches, _because he knows it's there a second before contact, a shivering, primordial fear paralyzing him as the water moves unnaturally behind him and then magmatic pain erupts across his left side, sawed teeth punching deep into his flesh._ "Ollie," Thea repeats, _and he's thrashing, yelling, sucking in water instead of air, actively drowning, the shark letting go and his legs propelling him forward, upward, desperately, please-please-please, bleeding red into the unforgiving sea._

A hand slips into his bandaged one and squeezes it so gently that it's barely there, but it draws his attention, and he breathes shallowly, and squeezes it back, and tries to unpuzzle reality.

"You're okay," Thea tells him. "You're at A.R.G.U.S."

 _"_ _My name is Amanda Waller."_

 _She never smiles. She rarely praises. She wants more of him, and he wants less, and they meet in the middle and find a partnership signed in blood._

"Ollie," Thea says again, a heartbreaking plea to her voice, and he tilts his head to look at her. His mouth doesn't cooperate, but he doesn't need to speak to see the relief finally cross her features as he stays above water, watching her. "It's okay," she promises, letting go of his hand. "You're safe."

 _The first night back he almost kills his own mother._

 _But she doesn't hate him._

 _"_ _It's all right, sweetheart. You're home._

 _"_ _You're home._ "

Oliver closes his eyes before gathering his last painfully depleted reserves and sitting up. He doesn't get far, but regarding her with hooded eyes, he finds clarity with elevation. Clarity with forced alertness. "Where's John?" he asks quietly.

"With Lyla. They're around," Thea replies, relaxing in the chair next to him. "Quentin's with Rene at the office."

Oliver tilts his head in a shallow nod. "Why'd he …?"

"Bring you here?" Another nod. "Ollie. You –" She hesitates on the words _were tortured_. "You needed help."

"I've survived worse."

"Not here," Thea says, sounding closer to tears than he's heard her in a while. He blinks at her slowly. "There, we couldn't do anything," she elaborates, "but _here_ , we can."

It's sedation, exhaustion, and pain that pries it out of him: "You should have let me die."

"Like hell," John replies, stepping into the room. Oliver doesn't turn to look at him, can't bring himself to look at the greatest man he has ever known, knowing that he betrayed him, not just once but to his core because _I'm not the man you think I am._ "Chase got in your head. We're your family. Trust us."

"I do trust you, John," he says slowly, meeting his eyes, "but you don't know the truth. You don't _know_ who I am."

"Brave," John says, stepping forward. "Hurt." He sits on the edge of the bed near Oliver's feet. "Thea, would you mind giving us the room?" he asks.

Without a word, Thea rises and squeezes Oliver's knee, stepping outside and closing the door quietly behind her.

"Five fractures," he lists off in his debriefing voice, and Oliver closes his eyes, just-listening. "Two ribs, left clavicle, right index and middle fingers." Goosebumps rise on Oliver's skin, but he doesn't stop John. Just-listens. "You have a solid concussion and multiple deep lacerations on your chest and back. One was infected. You almost pulled a shoulder. A bit of TLC and you should have unimpeded mobility in about six weeks."

Oliver opens his eyes. They burn, but there are no tears. Meeting John's gaze, he says, "Okay."

John's tone shifts from medic to comrade, an almost imperceptible firmness replacing quiet gentility as he explains, "You're also exhibiting a lot of signs of post-traumatic stress disorder."

Oliver looks away. John carries on, undeterred. "Trouble sleeping. Trouble concentrating. Overwhelming guilt. Angry outbursts."

Oliver's jaw clenches. "I'm not—"

"Apathy. Self-isolation."

"John."

"Avoidance. Always being on guard."

Oliver's chest burns with resistance. "John."

"Millions of soldiers, countless civilians – PTSD isn't something you just shrug off, Oliver."

"I'm not." _I don't have it._

"The darkness is something you have to live with," John says, ignoring him. "The things you could've done differently, the ways you came up short, the worst sides of yourself. But you're more than the cornered animal who did anything he had to to survive. You're more than the monster you became to stay sane. You're Oliver Queen."

Oliver doesn't respond, gaze drifting to the wall. He doesn't know what he would say – whether the rage or regret would voice itself more loudly. It all boils down to one over-arching self-loathing: _I wish I had died on that boat._

"There were days when I looked for a grenade to jump on," John admits, smoothing down the blanket near his right hand. "When I would've given anything to go up in flames. Two things stopped me. One," tapping Oliver's knee to get his attention, eyes-up, he explains, "survival instinct. Two, my own legacy. I would be a hero for all the wrong reasons. No one would've known," he allows, flattening his hand on Oliver's knee, warm and grounding. "Except me. I would've died knowing people saw me as a better person than I was when I threw myself on a grenade. They'd see a man who wanted to live, dying for his brothers. But I would have been a man who wanted to die, refusing to live with myself." With a soft, ironic huff, he finishes, "I didn't even deserve to _die_.

"I stayed alive looking for a middle road. I stayed alive believing there was something better out there. And I found it: service. I'd become a soldier to protect the world I loved. I found out the world I loved didn't exist, not in the way I'd conceived it. But there were still things worth fighting for: people I loved, things I believed in. I regrouped. I came home. I got lost, and then I met you.

"The billionaire kid who came back from the dead. After washing up, I didn't know what I could still do, but you knew: you were going to save the world. Honor your dad's legacy. You were living to make sure the man who jumped on the grenade was a hero, setting his master plan into motion. You had a purpose, and you didn't make apologies. And yes, Oliver: you made mistakes.

"So did I. I went along with it; I was complicit. My ledger grew longer. But," giving Oliver's knee a little shake, he explains, "I also learned how to balance the terms. I learned that I didn't have to live as just a survivor, a soldier. I didn't have to die just because I couldn't live the perfect life. I could _live_ with the terrible things I had done, not because I tore out their teeth and made them less terrible, but because I could be more than them, and I could do better than them. I'm not the same person I was in the field. I hope to never be the same person I was on some days. But I carry that person with me, and I live with that person, because I'm a different person, too.

"You were a monster. A part of you still is, and always will be.

"But you're also Oliver Queen, one of the bravest and most selfless people I've ever met. You survived _five years_ of hell and came home with a mission. That, Oliver, is the man I signed on with. I knew you had demons in your past that you didn't want to talk about. But I also saw what kind of person you were going forward, and maybe none of us have pure motives, maybe we're always going to be animals, doing things because we want to, because it feels good, because we think it's right, but we're more than those impulses. We're more than our worst moments. We're our best, too."

Oliver sits up slowly, carefully, still somewhat out-of-body, nothing hurts but nothing feels like it belongs to him, either, and then he holds out an arm.

John and he aren't huggers by nature, but he doesn't need to ask, and he doesn't need to say _thank you_ for it to be heard. Pressing his forehead against John's shoulder, he lets the tears burn, lets it hurt, lets it be his fault.

Then he inhales slowly and lets it _go_.

. o .

You don't erase; you accommodate.

Standing in the Green Arrow suit, Oliver looks in the floor-length mirror at the man he barely recognizes, at the man he wishes he didn't know, and meets his own eyes.

 _PTSD isn't something you just shrug off, Oliver_.

Adjusting his bow, he exhales slowly.

 _You needed help_.

Reaching up, he flicks the hood back.

 _No one, not even God, could have endured what you did and come out unscarred_.

Tugging the mask off, Oliver turns on his heel to face the empty cave.

He looks around at all the empty space, at all the spaces he has created for other people.

Then the elevator doors slide open.

Felicity steps out of them, alone.

Oliver walks over to her, pausing just before her, holding himself steady. Waiting.

Wrapping her arms around his waist, she says, "Ready to save the world?"

Oliver hugs her back and reels her in gently. "Ready to go home," he says softly, kissing the top of her head.

She nods, stepping back so he can shrug out of the jacket, and into a pedestrian shirt; shelve the bow, the arrows. It's a detangling process, removing his identity from his role as the Green Arrow without ever sacrificing it completely. Making more room, he likes to think of it, stepping forward for another, unencumbered hug.

It'll take years, maybe lifetimes, to accept that which he cannot erase.

But with his team at his side, he's ready to try.


End file.
